To not make my son share?

[drearyllama]

I took my 3½-year-old to a toddler swim session today where they put loads of toys and floats out. We arrived at the start of the session and he chose 2 buckets, a watering can, a few small toys and a float, then we went to the opposite end of the pool away from everyone else because he prefers independent play.

He played happily with those same toys for around 45 minutes. Another family then arrived and came to our end of the pool. Their older child repeatedly tried to take the watering can from my son, but he said, "No thank you, I'm playing," and held onto it. The child's adult moved him away the first time.

About 10 minutes later it happened again, but this time one of the adults came over and, while I was sitting right next to my son, told him that he had to share because he had two buckets. He again said,
"No thank you, I'm playing," but she took one of the buckets anyway and handed it to her child, saying,
"See, you have one now."

My little boy was upset because he'd been playing with those toys for nearly an hour. I didn't want to argue in front of the children, so I just reassured him and left it.

About 10-15 minutes later, the little boy came back again and tried to take another toy. This time my son shouted "No!" The lady came over, collected her child and said to the other adult, "Shall we get out?" The other lady replied, "Yes, because he's not sharing and she's not making him share."

We absolutely teach our children to share, but our rule is that if they're still actively playing with something, they can finish their turn first. Once they're done, sharing is expected. I also feel that if another parent had an issue, they should speak to me rather than taking something from my child.

I'm genuinely interested to know what others think.
Would you have said something, or would you have left it?

Exactly. The OP clearly misunderstands what sharing is. When he goes to school, he will be expected to share, properly.

@30mins are you serious? Of course a typical 3 year old can say ‘no thank you, Im playing with that’. My 2 year old can easily say that and hold full complex conversations.
My 3 year old can say anything and is due to start school in September. He clearly even understands social situations and social etiquette better than the OP because he would have happily shared if he was playing with that many toys, or asked me why the lady was being rude if he overheard the scenario.
That’s not the weird part of the story that her 3 year old can say that.

Yes, I’ve seen a boy that grows into one of these men.
We once had a beach birthday party for DD with food including BBQ drumsticks that were a big hit. One 9 yr boy ploughed through about 8 pieces of chicken while his mum stood by and said nothing.
There was a lot of food but we were surprised that his mum didn’t stop to consider how much he was consuming or how this may have impacted anyone else.

lol only on MN could a woman being so utterly selfish, rude and lacking in any discernible social or parenting skills be a weapon with which to beat men 🙄

LOL! That's what I noted!

I can imagine this - kid crying because all the toys are taken - one little boy has a huge pile of them including two of the same thing. Mum refuses to hand one over after having them the entire time.

op maybe go on amazon and buy yourself some plastic toys like this? A session like this is for sharing.

It's really good for kids to learn to share (I know modern parents often say it isn't) - it's just about learning life sucks sometimes !

He should have been encouraged to share. Isn't that what these kids groupdls are all about? To teach them to be sociable and learn skills such as sharing. Yes it's a pain but got to be learnt

"We absolutely teach our children to share, but our rule is that if they're still actively playing with something, they can finish their turn first. Once they're done, sharing is expected"

This is not what is called sharing, lol. So, if your child takes hours to finish playing with something, the other child never gets their turn from being tired of waiting?

...Because he had more than his fair share, and for longer than is reasonable.

We absolutely teach our children to share, but our rule is that if they're still actively playing with something, they can finish their turn first

a turn for the entire session, isn't a turn and isn't sharing.The other parent came back 10 to 15 minutes later nay your own account and still you refused to ensure your chid shared the toys that were not theirs

That's equally weird. Why haven't you just taught them to think for themselves & not be greedy?

Probably because it’s subjective what’s a fair share? Especially amongst teenage boys.

Did they do songs at the end?

I hated 'wind the bobbin up'

It's really not. Especially by the time they're teensgers.

As a mother of boys, when I bring the food to the table I always announce how much each person can have!

would be far better to announce

think about how you are going to share so no body is left with an empty plate

this turns it into a learning experience rather than being told what to do and not actually thinking about sharing

It seems that your parents forgot to teach you how to share, op.

I thought this was going to be about not sharing his own toys not failing to share public toys after you allowed him to take far too many.

Oh come on, we've all been to those sessions and there are definitely not enough toys out for 8 per child or however many you let your son take!

You were totally unreasonable and it sounds like you both need to learn to share!

And this is how entitlement is handed on one generation to another.

If your son went to a party tea and there was a set amount of food to share for all the children, then one kid grabbed most of the food including two whole pizzas and sat at the far end of the table slowly eating it all, whilst your son and the other kids at the other end of the table had hardly any food left to share between them, including no pizza because one child had taken it all………. Would you be ok with that? Would you wait for an hour until he was ready to “share” whatever food he couldn’t eat at the end, his scraps? Or would you go over to said greedy child and his mother and ask if he could please share the food with all the other children because he wasn’t behaving fairly or kindly and the other children were also hungry?

So, you put a plate of 25 items on table and say "there you go, there's enough for 5 each". Great.
But then pp saying "wow how dare you dictate and control what people eat"

Eh? Wtf is wrong with the world. Anyone opens their mouth for anything whatsoever and they're being controlling and dictating and abusive? It's like someone removed the capacity to actually think!

I know, it's effing infuriating! 😆

sounds like you are treachingyour child to be very entitled and greedy, why did you let him have so many? They are obviously there for every one not just you. What about when you are in a park and he is on a swing, his allowed to just stay on it as long as he likes whilst others wait for a turn?

DH tells stories of the tensions over food when he and teenage friends would go out for things like pizza. You’d think it would be easy enough to work out what was a fair share of pizza but inevitably a few would have a different idea of what this was.
It’s not uncommon for boys of this age to behave this way.

OP has grandly flounced, leaving the room holding the hand of PFB, complaining about how very very unfair we’ve all been.

I can't believe that 10% of the voters actually believe the OP behaved reasonably! They must be 'lurking' and not commenting for fear of getting ripped to shreds 😆